Timeless Trees


Synthetic trees shift barely in the non-existent breeze,
Rather they move as my hand moves against them.
I am twenty and eight, at once and independently,
Exploring what has long been explored, expecting comfort.
The cloth is a forest and like a forest, if I stand or stoop,
It all depends on the perspective one has, or is willing to embrace.

The trees have no trunks, they begin a foot above,
The floor covered not in needles, leaves, or debris.
Both are soft, not prickly for these trees have no branches,
Or the smell of sap, or sap itself, and the only wood is high above.
An artificial scent lingers and combines with others natural in origin,
But of I and I, only one smells, the other merely remembers.

With both hands, the trees offer minimal resistance to small fingers,
And none to those of elder age: no structure resists except gossamer threads.
The scent about them; a mixture of vanilla and rose, nylon and cotton,
Cobwebs and enclosed air, with a hint of natural exhalations.
Standing tall arms outstretched, or standing at all one explores,
the passing of time, as compact and as transient as we allow it to be.

The forest, darkness, artificially constructed, comes and goes with irregular frequency,
And when it arrives the walls close in around, but the trees are unmoved.
Yet outside, the passage of time continues unabated, relentlessly,
Debasing all hope that what remains will remain untouched.
I'm half-waiting for the true night, when the transitory separation,
Occurs, and I'm forgetting the severance which must come.

Mother is leaving for the night, she clasps a tree to her body,
Mother is gone from my home, and all that remain are memories.

Poetry Series 2016:

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